Parallel Monte Carlo simulation of three-dimensional flow over a flat plate

This article describes a parallel implementation of the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method. Runtime library support is used for scheduling and execution of communication between nodes, and domain decomposition is performed dynamically to maintain a favorable load balance. Performance tests are conducted using the code to evaluate various remapping and remapping-interval policies, and it is shown that a one-dimensional chain-partitioning method works best for the problems considered. The parallel code is then used to simulate the Mach 20 nitrogen flow over a finite thickness flat plate. It will be shown that the parallel algorithm produces results that are very similar to previous DSMC results, despite the increased resolution available. However, it yields significantly faster execution times than the scalar code, as well as very good load-balance and scalability characteristics.